FPGA Online Tracking Algorithm for the PANDA Straw Tube Tracker

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel FPGA-based online tracking algorithm for the PANDA Straw Tube Tracker, achieving rapid processing times and high momentum resolution suitable for high interaction rates.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new FPGA implementation of a helix track reconstruction algorithm that significantly improves processing speed and handles high event overlap for the PANDA experiment.

Findings

Processing time of 7 microseconds per event.

Momentum resolution of about 3% at 1 GeV/c.

Achieves 3 orders of magnitude speedup over CPU implementation.

Abstract

A novel FPGA based online tracking algorithm for helix track reconstruction in a solenoidal field, developed for the PANDA spectrometer, is described. Employing the Straw Tube Tracker detector with 4636 straw tubes, the algorithm includes a complex track finder, and a track fitter. Implemented in VHDL, the algorithm is tested on a Xilinx Virtex-4 FX60 FPGA chip with different types of events, at different event rates. A processing time of 7 $\mu$s per event for an average of 6 charged tracks is obtained. The momentum resolution is about 3\% (4\%) for $p_t$ ($p_z$) at 1 GeV/c. Comparing to the algorithm running on a CPU chip (single core Intel Xeon E5520 at 2.26 GHz), an improvement of 3 orders of magnitude in processing time is obtained. The algorithm can handle severe overlapping of events which are typical for interaction rates above 10 MHz.